Hertford College, Oxford

History

The college was originally founded as Hart Hall in 1282 by Elias de Hertford. In medieval Oxford, halls were primarily lodging houses for students and resident tutors, and thus did not have the same status as fully-fledged colleges. Many of the great minds of the English Renaissance studied at what would eventually become Hertford College including the metaphysical poet John Donne, the social theorist Thomas Hobbes, and the first translator of the Bible into English, William Tyndale. The first attempt to establish Hart Hall as a full college would come in the late 18th century, but the proposal ran into funding problems. The buildings were subsequently taken over as Magdalen Hall (not related to the similarly named Magdalen College whose separate Hall had been incorporated into the University as a college years before)1. In 1874, the combined Hart Hall/Magdalen Hall was finally re-established as a

Related Topics:
Hart Hall - 1282 - Elias de Hertford - Halls - Colleges - John Donne - Thomas Hobbes - William Tyndale - 18th century - Magdalen College - 1 - 1874

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full college, largely due to the sponsorship of Sir Thomas Baring. Within only seven years, the college came Head of the River in the annual college boat races.

Related Topics:
Sir Thomas Baring - Head of the River

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Hertford was one of the first five co-educational colleges in the university. It has an almost equal gender balance with a slightly higher proportion of women to men. Traditionally seen as a progressive college, in the 1960s Hertford was one of the first colleges to encourage applicants from state schools, and has a significantly higher proportion of students from state schools relative to private schools.

Related Topics:
Co-educational - 1960s - State schools - Private schools

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More recently the college has benefited from its firm financial footing. With an aggressive buying policy, its library collection has become one of the largest amongst the colleges and contains over 40,000 volumes. Among these are many rare seventeenth century manuscripts and an original edition of Hobbes' Leviathan given as a personal gift to the college where he prepared his best-known work. Students are accommodated for the full three years either on the main site or on college-owned property primarily in North Oxford and the Folly Bridge area. A new Hertford Graduate Centre fronting the Thames has also been built near Folly Bridge and was opened in 2000. The college playing fields include a pavilion with facilities for most major team sports; its shared boathouse has been recently rebuilt, and the college has a new student gym. Despite its reputation for a relaxed atmosphere Hertford has featured well in exam results, often finishing among the top ten university-wide.

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